Advertising reports and market data
Documents
Panel: Into The Ad-Verse – How To Effectively Integrate Ads Into Your Game.
Effective game monetization requires integrating advertising into the design process from the earliest conceptual stages to ensure a seamless balance between revenue generation and user experience.
- Effective ad monetization requires integrating ad strategy into the game design process from the very beginning, rather than treating it as an afterthought.
- Data-driven optimization is critical for scaling; for example, a large publisher found that a mere one-second delay in ad latency resulted in a 7% drop in revenue.
- Ad monetization and In-App Purchases (IAP) should be viewed as complementary revenue streams rather than conflicting models, with the goal being to monetize the user rather than just the game.
Curated Panel: How To Maximise Your ROAS & Retention Advertising On Rewarded Platforms.
Rewarded advertising platforms have emerged as a significant, reliable, and growing component of user acquisition strategies for mobile game developers.
- Rewarded platforms are a reliable scaling source for user acquisition, typically accounting for 10% to 15% of the total marketing spend for the participating companies.
- User retention metrics from rewarded platforms are often superior to traditional channels, making them a valuable data point when presenting performance to investors.
- To maximize return on ad spend (ROAS), advertisers should implement separate reporting and analysis for rewarded traffic, as user behavior differs significantly from organic or standard paid acquisition.
Session: AI Video Ads – Built 90% Faster & 80% Cheaper - Athar Zia, BLKbox
The integration of artificial intelligence into performance marketing is fundamentally shifting the creative landscape, enabling teams to produce video advertisements with significantly higher efficiency.
- AI-powered creative platforms can accelerate video ad production by 90% and reduce costs by 80% compared to traditional manual workflows.
- Modern UA strategy has shifted from a primary focus on bidding, budgeting, and targeting to a creative-first approach where identifying winning ad concepts is the key driver of profitability.
- The BLKbox platform utilizes five core pillars—analyze, ideate, create, test, and scale—to automate the generation of video ads by extracting the 'DNA' of successful competitor creative.
Session: Why Focusing Only On New Users Is Holding Back Your Mobile Game – Vera Manhoso, RTB
Mobile game developers often prioritize user acquisition (UA) at the expense of retargeting, a strategy that limits long-term growth and profitability.
- Only 1.83% of mobile game users typically make in-app purchases, making the retention of these high-value players through retargeting essential for long-term profitability.
- Retargeting is more cost-effective than user acquisition (UA) because it leverages existing data on player value, whereas UA requires spending to identify the value of new, unknown users.
- Retargeting campaigns can be initiated with an audience as small as 2,000 to 3,000 high-value players, and they do not need to run year-round to be effective.
Turning Privacy Pop-Ups Into Real Profits with CMPs
Consent Management Platforms have transitioned from basic regulatory compliance tools into essential strategic assets for driving advertising revenue.
- Consent signals significantly increase ad revenue, with InMobi data showing eCPMs for consented users are 150% higher in the US and 200% to 300% higher in the EU compared to non-consented users.
- Implementing a Consent Management Platform (CMP) should be treated as a growth lever rather than a compliance burden, as optimized consent flows can achieve opt-in rates of up to 70%.
- Publishers should avoid defaulting to 'check all' for third-party vendors in their CMP, as listing an excessive number of vendors can overwhelm users and negatively impact opt-in rates.
MMPs and Attribution: Grow Your Mobile Game Now!
Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs) function as the foundational infrastructure for the mobile gaming industry, serving as centralized hubs that normalize data across fragmented ad networks.
- MMPs serve as the essential infrastructure for mobile gaming by normalizing fragmented data across ad networks and providing unified SDKs for cross-platform attribution and ROAS calculation.
- To counter the deprecation of the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), MMPs have transitioned to a privacy-first framework utilizing Apple’s SKAdNetwork, probabilistic modeling, and server-side conversion APIs.
- Modern studios use MMPs as data backends by piping raw, real-time data into internal business intelligence systems for custom lifetime value modeling and fraud detection.
The Evolution of Mobile Advertising Explained: How to make Ad revenue by Felix Braberg
The mobile advertising landscape has undergone a significant transformation since the 2008 launch of the App Store, evolving from a nascent ecosystem into a sophisticated marketplace defined by complex mediation platforms.
- Maximize ad revenue by fostering intense competition among ad networks to drive up inventory pricing and capture the highest possible value per impression.
- Integrate six to ten high-performing ad networks through major mediation platforms like AdMob, Unity LevelPlay, or AppLovin MAX to optimize eCPM and fill rates.
- Maintain high inventory efficiency by targeting five to ten rewarded ad impressions per user on a daily basis.
The State of AAA Game Advertising: 2023 Review
The 2023 AAA game advertising landscape underwent a strategic pivot toward launch-focused campaigns, with new releases accounting for half of all top-tier spending.
- In 2023, AAA publishers shifted toward launch-focused campaigns, with new releases accounting for 50% of all top-tier advertising expenditure.
- While YouTube remains the primary advertising medium for PC and console games, publishers are increasingly diversifying their media mix by integrating Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram to target specific demographics.
- Strategic platform-based partnerships, such as deep Xbox branding and hardware collaborations, are now essential for anchoring major titles within broader ecosystem strategies.
Playing to Win: 2025 Digital Game Advertising Report
The 2025 digital gaming market is defined by a strategic pivot toward user quality and high-velocity creative iteration, with global advertising expenditure reaching $8.7 billion.
- Global digital gaming advertising expenditure reached $8.7 billion in 2025, with major publishers like Microsoft and Dream Games utilizing aggressive spending to maintain market share.
- The industry has shifted its primary success metric from sheer download scale to engagement quality, despite a year-over-year decline in total mobile and PC downloads.
- Roblox continues to bypass traditional external advertising, generating 187 billion visits through organic traffic and internal discovery mechanisms.
Creative Analytics
This analysis examines the mobile advertising landscape during 2023, focusing on the shift toward User-Generated Content (UGC) and video-centric creative strategies.
- Video-centric content now dominates the mobile advertising landscape, accounting for 80% of all creatives in Q3 2023, up from 69% in the previous quarter.
- Total mobile advertisers declined 7% year-over-year to 54,900, though the gaming, entertainment, and lifestyle verticals bucked this trend with continued growth.
- Android remains the primary platform for ad distribution, hosting 68% of the 15.2 million total creatives compared to 32% on iOS.
The State of AAA Game Advertising: A Look Back on the Biggest Launches and Trends of the Past Year
The 2023 PC and console gaming landscape was defined by a strategic pivot toward new title launches, which commanded 50% of top advertising expenditures compared to only 20% the previous year.
- AAA advertising shifted heavily toward new title launches in 2023, which accounted for 50% of total ad spend compared to just 20% in the previous year.
- YouTube remains the dominant advertising channel at 35% of total spend, though marketing budgets are increasingly diversifying into TikTok, Instagram, and OTT services to leverage short-form video engagement.
- High-budget marketing is no longer the sole path to success, as titles like Lethal Company and PalWorld achieved millions of sales through viral gameplay and creator-driven interest with minimal ad investment.
Guide to Consumer Rights, Advertising and Data Protection: Spain
The guide is intended to equip Spanish video-game publishers, developers and marketers with a practical understanding of the legal framework governing consumer rights, advertising and data protection.
- Digital purchases in Spain generally require a 14-day right of withdrawal, though this is waived for age-rated titles once gameplay begins and for opened physical copies or virtual currencies.
- Data processing for users under 14 requires verified parental consent, which must be obtained through age-verification mechanisms or electronic signatures.
- Influencer marketing must include clear, visible disclosures such as #Sponsored or #Ad to avoid violating regulations against covert sponsorship.